making faces :: sweet and savoury bites

as i mentioned in my initial review of bite beauty's amuse bouche lipsticks, there are some new shades that have been released for summer. the collection, featuring six new shades is called "sweet and savoury", three that fall into each 'camp'. the sweet shades are lighter and softer. the savoury shades are intense and deep. i've heard different things about the status of these shades: some say all are limited, some say all are permanent, still others say it's a mix, but even then, i've heard different things about which are the limited shades. it's all very stressful and confusing, because i wasn't sure which shades i should pick up to ensure i didn't miss out.

in the end, i selected two, which was difficult, because in this small collection, bite has managed to overcome the one niggling concern that i had about them. i've mentioned before that the biggest reason i don't rush out and buy every single bite lipstick is because i find a lot of their shades are just too easily matched to colours already in my considerable lipstick cache. with "sweet and savoury", they have broken through into the realm of very original shades, including ones that are offbeat and ones that are understated.

in the end, i went with probably the two most eye-catching shades, one sweet and one savoury [because i'm a libra and obsessed with balance]: "lavender jam" and "kale".

"lavender jam" is a bright blue-toned purple, that will pull more blue on those with cooler undertones. there's a slight grey cast to it that keeps it from looking neon, which is nice, since a lot of these types of colours are made with a white base, something i'm increasingly convinced looks good on no one. i think that this shade would look amazing on someone with cool, slightly muted colouring, someone who falls in the light summer, true summer or dark winter sci/ art seasons. it's still a bit daring for anyone, because the colour almost glows from within, another thing that makes it very distinctive. i think that auxiliary beauty hit the nail on the head when she compared the colour to hydrangeas, a flower that has already inspired a blog post for me.

lavender jam

lavender jam

the formula is very good, in keeping with what i've come to expect from the amuse bouche lipsticks, but i found that this one had a tendency to appear a little uneven if i didn't take the time to get it right. it wore evenly enough, which is a relief, and left a faint lilac-purple stain after a few hours.

i didn't even bother making comparison swatches for this shade, because i knew right away that i have nothing similar. remember what i said about my extensive cache of lipsticks? it is a pretty amazing thing when i have to throw up my hands and admit that there is nothing close enough to even warrant a comparison.

my savoury choice was "kale", which is certainly one of the most talked-about shades bite has ever released [not least because they gave titillating hints about it on social media before its release]. it's a deep, dark green with a lustrous sheen, like a steamed or sauteed version of its namesake vegetable. [preferably with olive oil and a hefty amount of garlic, because otherwise, kale doesn't appeal to me very much.] in the shadows, it can read as black, but when any light hits it, you can see the green depths twinkling away.

kale

kale

dark colours can appear patchy, but this one is a knock-out. it was almost completely even after a single light pass and stayed that way. seriously, i think it would have stayed looking just about the same the entire day if i hadn't eaten. and even then, there wasn't a lot of colour removed. this is one of the longest-wearing lipsticks i've ever encountered. when i removed it at the end of the day, my lips were still left with a faint stain. i had to exfoliate them to complete remove the colour.

now, canny readers of this blog will remember that it wasn't too terribly long ago that i ordered a dark green lipstick from rituel de fille, which raises the question: how many dark green lipsticks does one girl need? despite the fact that i was drawn to "kale" like a moth to a vegetable-based flame, i was vaguely nervous that it would be more or less the same as "chrysalis", which is still practically new to me itself.

l to r :: kale, rdf chrysalis

however, they're very little alike at all. "kale" is a lot darker and it's a cooler, bluer green, whereas "chrysalis" is more of an olive-tinged forest green. "kale" is also quite glossy, whereas "chrysalis" is matte. i was a little surprised at how different they were, until it occurred to me that i'm never surprised when i find a distinctive berry shade, and i have about a thousand of those already, so why should i be surprised to find variety in dark greens, where there are only about three in the world? [i know there are more, but i also don't literally have a thousand berry lipsticks. i swear.]

the more pertinent question is, "how often am i going to wear a green lipstick?" in this case, i refer you back to my comments about "chrysalis", which are appropriate: strange colours are clearly having a moment right now, which is fantastic as far as i'm concerned, but which can make one feel a little self-conscious. if you're someone who wants to try her luck with a "freaky" colour, but are a bit shy, using a dark shade can be a way to ease into the weirdness. dark lip colours, as dramatic as they can look, don't scream "i am green!! hear me roar!" in quite the same way. [at the same time, i wore "chrysalis" to a show a while back and one of my friends complimented me on wearing such a cool shade, so you're not totally losing the shock effect.]

"kale" is dramatic, but it's very flattering on my cooler colouring, which makes me feel like i could be comfortable wearing it in a number of situations. it's not ever going to pass for natural, but it's not going to read as clownish, either. if anything, i think that "lavender jam" is the more risqué of the two shades that i picked up, because of its brightness.

so how do these two beauties look in use? a little like this:

i find that you can see the slight unevenness in "lavender jam" if you look at these photos. i'd go so far as to say that you can see it more in the photos than you could in real life, but perhaps that's wishful thinking on my part. i've combined it with shades from the urban decay naked 3 eyeshadow palette and nars "sin" on the cheeks. the vibrancy of "lavender jam" makes it a little tricky to match with other colours and i don't feel like i've hit on the perfect combo yet. this one's not bad, but i just know i can do better.

like a lot of vampy shades, "kale" does best when it's allowed to take the lead. i paired it with rouge bunny rouge "gracious arasari" and "solstice halcyon", and a touch of illamasqua precision ink liner in "wisdom". yes, i like this colour very much.

i'm happy with both of these colours, particularly "kale" and i rather suspect that, budget permitting, i could be tempted by other shades in this collection. there's an inky dark blue and a luscious, earthy dark brown on the savoury side and a smoky deep lavender and a remarkably original mauve-taupe nude on the sweet side. all seem very appealing and, in case i haven't made it clear enough, these are some of the most original shades in the bite beauty line up. go forth and indulge, i command you.

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